Question : Problem: Why did Apple Newton FAIL while Palm succeeded ???

I'm confused, why exactly did the Apple Newton fail whereas, 2 years later (?), the Palm PDA succeeded ?  Unfortunately I havent been able to find much on the subject but I gather it had to do with pricing and OCR technology ?  Did it have anything to do with app software?

Answer : Problem: Why did Apple Newton FAIL while Palm succeeded ???

Size & Price.

Newton: Bigger and expensive with a bad reputation for poor handwriting recognition

Palm: Smaller, cheaper, longer battery life.

Most cosumers don't care about the "cool" factor, they want something that works. I have had the following:
-Pilot 5000
-Philips Velo 500
-NEC MobilePro 570
-Palm Vx
-iPaq H3650
-iPaq H3870
-iPaq H3970
-iPaq H5450

And I would say that as far as value for money goes, my Pilot 5000 was the best. It was small, the handwriting recognition worked every time.

I played with the original Newton and it handwriting recognition was pathetic. The newer Newtons had fantastic handwriting recognition but because they stuffed up so badly, the stigma of bad recognition stuck with it and pretty much sank the product.